(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a blender, and in particular to a blender comprising a container that is supported on a motor base by a retainer, wherein the blender comprises a safety switch that is actuateable by the retainer mounted to the base.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
A blender is commonly used to make juice of fruits or vegetables by pulverizing and blending the fruits or vegetables with a cutter of shape blades. A conventional blender comprises a motor base on which a container, serving as a receptacle for pieces of fruits and/or vegetables, is mounted. The cutter set is arranged at the bottom of the container and is driven a motor contained in the motor base to pulverize the fruits and/or vegetables. This arrangement makes the conventional blender difficult to clean for the container is very deep and often has a small opening, both limiting the user's hand from easily reaching the bottom of the container. Further, the cutter arranged at the bottom of the container also causes troubles for users to clean the container. As a consequent, residual of the fruits and/or vegetables can easily remain in the container. In addition, the container is often made of glass, and this makes it not possible to mount a safety switch on the container. A solution is to arrange the safety switch on the base in such a location that the safety switch can only be triggered when the container is mounted to the motor base.
FIG. 1 of the attached drawings shows such a known blender, which is broadly designated with reference numeral 1. The conventional blender 1 comprises a base 11 that is connectable to an external power source, a container set 12 that is releasably mounted to the base 11, and a cutter set 13 arranged in the container set 12.
The base 11 comprises a housing 111, a motor 112 enclosed in the housing 111, a plurality of control buttons 113 arranged on an outer surface of the housing 111 for turning on/off the motor 112, and a safety switch 114 arranged on a top of the hosing 111 to which the container set 12 is mounted.
The container set 12 comprises a container retainer 121 that is mounted to the base 11 and a container 122 threadingly mounted to the container retainer 121. The cutter set 13 is arranged inside and at the bottom of the container 122 and comprises blades 131 that are located inside the container 121. The container 122 is provided at an underside thereof with a trigger member 123 corresponding to the safety switch 112.
When a user mounts the container set 12 to the base 11, the trigger member 123 engages and actuates the safety switch 114 to allow electrical power to supply from the external power source to the motor 114. Under this situation, the user may use the control buttons 113 as desired to control the rotation of the motor 112. The motor 112, once turned on, drives the cutter set 13 to rotate and thus pulverize pieces of food received in the container 122. When the user removes the container set 12 from the base 11, the trigger member 123 disengages from and thus de-actuates the safety switch 114. Thus, the motor 112 is disconnected from the external power source. To clean the blender 1, the user may separate the container retainer 121, together with the cutter set 13, from the container 122 to allow easy access to all the corners of the container 122 for complete cleaning.
However, the arrangement of the conventional blender induces certain risks to the user. For example, in case that the user first mounts container retainer 121, together with the cutter set 13, and the trigger member 123 engages and actuates the safety switch 114, making the motor 112 connected to the external power source, when the control buttons 113 are accidentally actuated by the user, the motor 112 is actuated and put into operation to rotate the cutter blades 131. The cutter blades 131 that are unexpectedly put into high speed rotation are extremely dangerous to the user. Alternately, in case the control buttons 113 have already been depressed, at the time when the user inadvertently put the container retainer 121, without the container 122 mounted thereon, to the base 11, the safety switch 114 will be actuated by the trigger member 124 of the container retainer 121 and the cutter set 13 is immediately driven by the motor 112. Again, this is extremely dangerous to the user.
Thus, it is the blender maker's challenge to provide a blender having enhanced safety measure.